MUGHAL INDIA, LATE 16TH CENTURY

Whilst Mughal painters were quick to copy the European engravings brought to the court by Jesuit missionaries, they rarely painted the missionaries themselves. In our portrait, the figure holds an open book, most likely a Bible or the Gospels, an inevitable accessory for a missionary. More unusually, in his other hand he holds a pair of spectacles. In a late 16th century portrait in the Musée Guimet, a Jesuit missionary similarly stands with a book in one hand and a pair of spectacles in the other (Jorges Flores and Nuno Vassallo e Silva (eds.), Goa and the Great Mughal, exhibition catalogue, Lisbon, 2004, p.193). In her discussion on that portrait, Okada suggests that the spectacles indicate that it is a true portrait and not one of the more stereotyped figures of missionaries (Flores and Silva (eds.), op.cit., p.193). It is suggested that this missionary could be Father Rodolfo Acquaviva, head of the first Jesuit mission in 1580, due to a contemporaneous account which records him as wearing glasses. A portrait of an Armenian priest, similar in overall conceit with a closely related background, is in the Fondation Custodia, Paris (Sven Gahlin, The Courts of India. Indian Miniatures from the Collection of the Fondation Custodia, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1991, pl.5, no.4). That is dated to circa 1580 and a similar date therefore seems likely for our painting.

A similar painting of a Jesuit, wearing similar blue robes and dated to 1595-1600, is in the Chester Beatty Library (Linda York Leach, Mughal and other Indian Paintings from the Chester Beatty Library, vol.I, London, 1995, cat.2.165, pp.304 and 307).